Pacific Lutheran University

He eventually took those musings, signed up on digs as a graduate student, got to work with Heyerdahl, and crafted a career that put him in the klieg lights of international publicity this summer.

That’s when Egyptologists confirmed that Ryan had indeed found, on the first day of a dig in 1989, the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s greatest female pharaoh. Ryan’s work was chronicled on a Discovery Channel special this July. In this podcast, Ryan talks about his career, working in 125 degree heat in the Valley of the Kings, and how he found Hatshepsut’s lost tomb.

He leaves for Egypt, and more digging, in late October.

University Communications writer Barbara Clements compiled this report. Questions, comments, ideas for other stories? Please contact her at ext. 7427.